my sincere apologies, pt.1 (closed on popular demand!)

[puretube]

dear Japanese Intellectual Property:
may I herewith offer You my excuses for having addressed You
(the IP - please forgive me this abbreviation - from Japan,)
with an abbreviated- 3-letters, not-starting-with-a-capital-letter
and using a full stop, -adjective to denominate Your country as origin.

This abbrev. was chosen by me not to insult you,
but to save my preciuos time.
Time saved, which I afterwards had to spend looking into my
"Webster`s New World Dictionary" (which b.t.w. was not bought by me, but presented for birthday).

In this book I found that one of 3 explanations of the words
(3 letters, capital first, no full stop) that are very similar to the form
that I wrote the adjectice down, is a "hostile term",
the other an "abbrev." (the 3rd one not related).

Until now, I had only been aware (and never make/made use of)
of 2 5-letter-words that are being regarded as swear-word nouns
for people from Japan (not usable as adjectives)
in the Dutch and German language, which are the only tongues I speak fluently.

Never have I had in mind to insult/offend You, the Japanese IP, or any-thing-/body related.

Quite the contrary is true:

I was asking myself (and the "forum") if I were the only one being concerned about Japanese authors` copyrights,
that to me seemed to be starting to be infringed.
(Without me knowing, that one of the young talented
internet-publishers was a child from Your great nation.

After being disciplined by one of those young talented editors,
I chose not to alter the text I had written,
but only to add an "edit", to clearly show that there was no harmful
intention from my side involved concerning Japan or Japanese
whatsoever.

I stood up for Your rights!
I stepped not on them, nor did I mean to!

Shortcut: YES; Disrespect: NO !

(if unbelieving/interested: look thru some P-T posts and find
lots of unfinished ...-sequences)

Yours sincerely
Anthonie Th. Barmentloo (aka "puretube"),
writer, composer, publisher & electronics designer

who will let nobody put him into a racist-like drawer :!:

[Mark Hammer]

The professionalism of your posting mirrors the professionalism of your designs and products, sir.  I am not at all surprised by it, and I mean that in the *good* sense.

[petemoore]

A while back guys like John Wayne were extremist in their political incorrectness...just watch Green Beret's and other films depicting WWII etc. from that era...
 Personally I admire many things Japanese...And I feel your intent is clearly not to insult, but to type faster by using Abbr.s...I do it all the time.
 It just shows to go that when you type something, it is on record and subject to scrutinizations for all times.
 After reading your apology, I feel no apology is needed.
 I know I'm just looking at black print on white background, nonetheless I see 'colors'...the aura here is blue not red.

[smoguzbenjamin]

Hey japan is cool :mrgreen: They invented manga and cute cartoons! My girlfriend loves those cartoons... It's called Pukka or Puca or something like that...

[MarkB]

well put.

that being said - I think we are becoming a society of overly-sensitive, easily offended wussy-butts... people need to lighten up all around.. everyone.. no exceptions.

I hate PC crap.
"-)

PS - "wussy-butt" is a technical term that I have now coined, it is my intellectual property and none of you may use it without paying me 1 electrolytic capacitor as royalties.

[Skreddy]

...nonetheless I see 'colors'...the aura here is blue not red.

Oooh!  Do me next!  

[Jun]

Mr.Barmentloo
I am also sorry for over reacting to your comment. One factor to the over reaction was on one thread you recommended the 'Japanese' octave box schem from the same book but on another you were worried about the ethics.

that being said - I think we are becoming a society of overly-sensitive, easily offended wussy-butts... people

.............sometimes childhood scares are deeper than realized.

My intentions were just wanted to contribute, in some way, to this wonderful forum where electronics gurus like yourself take their time to explain to us newbies what the color bars on a resistor means!

Now let's put this all behind us and get back to making pedals!

Forever known as 'wussy-butt'
Jun

[Ge_Whiz]

Oh gosh, I have a colleague who persists in referring to the Japanese as a 'nation of yellow-skinned slitty-eyed devils'. She maintains that, being Japanese herself, no-one has the right to correct her, especially as her sense of humour tends towards the desire to shock hairy, pasty-faced white boys like me (my self-description, not hers).

When her (British) husband worked as a computer hardware specialist for an Anglo-Japanese finance company in Tokyo, the company employed e-mail filters to ruthlessly edit out any objectionable words from e-mails both incoming and outgoing. Thus, to 'nip' was banned, wire cutters could not be referred to as 'nippers', to swear you had to remember to type "fcuk", "damm" or "bluddy", and on one memorable occasion, a field engineer had to be instructed to attach a probe to the wire whose colour came between orange and green in the spectrum - yes, the word "y*ll*w" was banned.

I now leave the finer points of PC of this matter open to other people to debate.  :twisted:

[RDV]

My wife is half-Japanese, so my perception of anti-asian remarks is pretty acute, and I thought it(Jap.) was an abbreviation.

Regards

RDV

[troubledtom]

Anthonie Th. Barmentloo (aka "puretube"),
writer, composer, publisher & electronics designer

 you rock , i knew you'd do the right thing!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
    peace and good health to you!!!!!!!!!!!!
              - tom pollock
www.troubledvariance.com

[mikeb]

My wife is half-Japanese, so my perception of anti-asian remarks is pretty acute, and I thought it(Jap.) was an abbreviation.

Well, it is , just not a nice one (if I hear this coming out of fellow Australian's mouths it sounds offensive); but you need to consider the user's country of origin AND native tongue when deciding how it is intended to be understood. In the context here I would only take it as an abbreviation too.

Mike

[Dai H.]

A while back guys like John Wayne were extremist in their political incorrectness...just watch Green Beret's and other films depicting WWII etc. from that era...

Vietnam.. Not WWII. And that was politically correct... for them. A while back, things were different. Go back in time, and the idea of racial hierarchies was more the norm. You know, I wonder, if say, a Jew was called a "Son of Abraham", and got upset over it back then, would that person be a "little too PC"? If someone wants to use "Jap" as an abbreviated term w/no malintent, fine. Just don't expect me to be happy about it. (And if we were so okay w/".jap", don't you think it would've been chosen over ".jp"? Would've took all of what--5seconds to Google it...) It's also a context thing. Not like I don't have a sense of humour--I and friends have joked around/poked fun at ea. other, w/words in which--in another context--would be or could be disparaging ("wop", "coonass", "Tojo", whatever). It's just that, say if you were a white kid w/a black friend, and if you met your friend's parents for the first time and said, "Yo what's up niggas?"--would you expect them to be happy about it even if you used the term "nigga" all the time w/ea. other? If somebody went up to a German person, and remarked, "Hey, Kraut cars are really kick-ass!", would that be complimentary, insulting, or both at the same time? (lol) It's certainly not the case that there aren't Japanese racists/bigots, (seems like there is a lot of anti-Korean sentiment these days--lots of intentionally racist remarks, caricatures, etc. on the internet, and apparently likewise to whatever extent on the other part). As individuals though, I think you can (and people do) make choices about how you use such terms and whether to be sensitive to that or not.

[Tony Forestiere]

My goodness!!!

An apology/explanation was offered due to a lingiustic/cultural misunderstanding of the ramifications of someone's chosen abbreviation... and somebody else throws up "Wop, Kraut, Spick, Nigger, Coon, Tojo!!!  

JEEZ!

We are all multicultural and sometimes don't understand the taboos and sensitivities that other nationalities/ethnicities might have.

I truly believe this whole "thing" is a simple colloquial misunderstanding, and we all LOVE each other because we are "smarter than the average bear"
:wink:

PS: Maneco... I'm still digging your song :!:

[puretube]

Thanx, mr. Dai H. : now that`s a point:

don't you think it would've been chosen over ".jp"?

.
Didn`t know that is the corr. abbrev. to choose.

if the jp. IP and the people of Japan and on the forum don`t mind,
I`ll go back and edit one more time that posting with the  complained-of "pejorative" (had to look up that word in Webster`s, too) term, and replace the term with the one I like even better, because even shorter...

F.y.i.: in German, one can distinguish wether a person is talked about:
Japanese man = Japaner (cap. letter!); Japanese woman = Japanerin;
or an adjective:
Japanese language (...or IP...) = japanisch (-e; -es) (small first letter!);
The first 2 don`t have abbreviations (!), whilst the latter uses the first 3 letters (in small) with a full stop (" . ").

One of the reasons my time online is restricted (& I`m no big "googler")
is the fact, that until 3 weeks ago, our phone-line would be blocked by the analogue c-b-c dial-up modem when "on the air"...

b.t.w.: being a dutch "cheesehead" (yes, even born in  the famous cheese-city: "Gouda"), livin` in Germany since over 40 years, I`d say that a: "Kraut-anything" is worth a laugh, but calling the same thing a: "Nazi-anything": beware!!! .

[Dai H.]

My goodness!!!

An apology/explanation was offered due to a lingiustic/cultural misunderstanding of the ramifications of someone's chosen abbreviation... and somebody else throws up "Wop, Kraut, Spick, Nigger, Coon, Tojo!!!  

JEEZ!

We are all multicultural and sometimes don't understand the taboos and sensitivities that other nationalities/ethnicities might have.

I truly believe this whole "thing" is a simple colloquial misunderstanding, and we all LOVE each other because we are "smarter than the average bear"
:wink:

PS: Maneco... I'm still digging your song :!:

look, I don't want to beat a dead horse, but, this was said:

the "ethics committee" doesn`t seem to work on jp. IP....

Correct? Well, it looks to me like there is an association of Japanese-ness w/un-ethical behavior. Okay, so when someone for example brings up some scammer on ebay, who from language, location, etc. appears to be an American, does the fact that that person is American ever come up? Is it emphasized, ever?? Or does anyone even bring up the State the person is in? "Oh, look at him, he's a Louisianan... Hmm..." Do you understand my point? Now OF COURSE there are un-ethical, immoral, scum-of-the-earth Japanese, but these attitudes, behaviors are not inherent, correct? I'm not saying that people can't make factual, or empircal observations--ebay scammers from Indonesia, boutique pedal ripoffs on Yahoo Japan auctions or whatever--I don't have a problem with that. It just looked to me like a guilt-by-association trip. Does the above statement even make sense if you replace the ".jp" w/whatever domain/country you are from? If, say, "umm... isn't that copyrighted material?" was said, then no harm no foul, no nothing...

[puretube]

NOW STOP THIS PLEASE, SIR !!!

Dai H. wrote:

look, I don't want to beat a dead horse, but, this was said:

puretube wrote:
the "ethics committee" doesn`t seem to work on jp. IP....


Correct? Well, it looks to me like there is an association of Japanese-ness w/un-ethical behavior.

IT IS YOU, who has very totally completely misunderstood that post.

And that is a fully different issue than that abbreviation 3-letter "fault".

the "ethics committee" doesn`t seem to work on Japanese Intellectual Property...


(as it should have been written out completely...)

was meant to (and has been unserstood by most forum-readers/-contributors very well, like the thread which was thankfully started by "afranks" as a follow-up proves) say exactly this:

>>>why does nobody else (besides me), who usually on this forum take care about copyrights and IP,
and to whom I refer to as the "ethics committee",
say out loud, that it is wrong to treat Japanese IP other than other country`s IP, that it is wrong to say nothing in defence of a Japanese book, while the contrary has happened in this forum before, concerning other old books<<<

It was more of like a question and a call upon others to react:
>why does no-one say s.th. against publishing a Japanese book "illegally", whilst this has been discussed in length and rejected beforetimes  here,
about a "Boscorelli"-book (which nationality? - I don`t know!!!)
and other (us) books.<

Don`t You want to understand, that I just wanted to x-press,
that all IP is "born" equal, and should be respected that way!?

[sirkut]

Correct? Well, it looks to me like there is an association of Japanese-ness w/un-ethical behavior. Okay, so when someone for example brings up some scammer on ebay, who from language, location, etc. appears to be an American, does the fact that that person is American ever come up? Is it emphasized, ever?? Or does anyone even bring up the State the person is in? "Oh, look at him, he's a Louisianan... Hmm..." Do you understand my point?

Not really a good example. The US has enough stereotyping as it is.  Money hungry, oil hungry, imperialists, blah blah.  We see state stereotypes all the time. Look at what is going on right now with UGA in Georgia with the basketball scandal.  People assume that everone in the state of georgia are a collection of inbreds.  As a whole, this whole thread is just plain retarded (oops, did I offend anyone?) No seriously, ease up, lighten up!

[Brett Clark]

Okay, so when someone for example brings up some scammer on ebay, who from language, location, etc. appears to be an American, does the fact that that person is American ever come up? Is it emphasized, ever?? Or does anyone even bring up the State the person is in? "Oh, look at him, he's a Louisianan... Hmm..."

As we would say here in Tennessee, "you ain't from around here, are you?"

On many forums (fora, actually...), I have seen Americans maligned as greedy, imperialistic, gun-obsessed, shallow, uncultured, etc. Sometimes, even here    .  Is it somewhat true? Yes. But most stereotypes have some origin in truth.  

And yet, few Americans take real offence to being called "Yank" or even "Gringo", even though those were intended originally (or even still) as derogatory terms. As a Southern American, I certainly wouldn't be a "Yankee" to another American, but if called that by a foreigner, I wear the term with pride.

Speaking of other Americans: YES, we are very much aware of what states people are from and the associated stereotypes. Many Americans assume, for example, that Tennesseans are ignorant, inbred, drunken "rednecks". Some are. But some of us are not (Ansil, TroubledTom, Marcus Dahl, and myself, just for starters). I've actually had people from elsewhere tell me that I "couldn't be from Tennessee" because I don't match their stereotype.

Every state has a stereotype, even if it's only that it's so bland it doesn't merit a REAL stereotype. You know who you are...

As far as scams go, what American state someone is from can make a LOT of difference, due to varying state laws. Certain types of scams are closely associated with certain states: Florida , Missouri , Nevada, and Pennsylvania (and others) all have "characteristic scams" - it is wise to be aware of them. I'm sure that there are many honest real-estate agents in Florida, for example, but there are enough crooked ones that it pays to do some extra homework if you wanted to buy land there.

SOME RANDOM OBSERVATIONS (no real point):

"Brit" is not considered offensive by the British (correct me if I'm wrong, anyone from UK)

As far as ancestry goes, I'm mostly Welsh. But that English word (which is not what they call themselves) has its origins in a Saxon word meaning "strange". Certainly, it was originally MEANT to be offensive.

This is a puzzle: Why is "Afghani" an accepted term for those from Afghanistan, but "Paki" is considered offensive for those from Pakistan?

[sirkut]

Brett, great post. I get the same thing here in georgia in regards to people telling me that I couldn't be from around here.  I don't even sound "southern" when I speak. Chalk that up from my father being in the miltary and moving all over the place!

[smoguzbenjamin]

I'm trying to convince my girlfriend that not all Americans are obese and sue you for almost anything Sometimes, prejudice is hard to eradicate.